Chapter 6 #2
"That's twice now you've attacked one of us," he murmured against my ear, his breath hot on my neck.
His lips brushed the shell of my ear, and I shuddered despite myself.
"Mason won't count last night, you were in shock, and he's disgustingly lenient where you're concerned.
But I keep track of these things, Ava. And eventually, there will be a reckoning. "
"Let me go," I hissed, still struggling against his iron grip.
"Say please," he replied, and I could hear the smile in his voice.
"Fuck you," I spat, my body shaking with impotent rage.
He laughed—a soft, cold sound that made my stomach clench with something that wasn't entirely fear.
"Eventually. But not today. Today, you're going to eat breakfast. You're going to drink water.
You're going to take care of the body that belongs to us now, whether you like it or not.
Then you're going to go back to your nest and wait. "
"Wait for what?" I demanded, hating how breathless I sounded.
"For your heat to hit." He released my wrists suddenly, stepping back so fast I stumbled forward and nearly fell. "For your body to override that stubborn mind of yours. For the moment you stop fighting and start begging."
"I'll never beg," I told him, spinning to face him and giving him the dirtiest look I could manage. My wrists ached where he'd held them, and I rubbed them absently, knowing there would be bruises.
"You will," he said simply, already turning to go.
He paused at the end of the hallway, looking back over his shoulder.
The light caught his angular features, highlighting the sharp planes of his face, the predatory gleam in those green eyes.
"They all do, eventually. You've been fighting longer than most, which means when you finally break.
.." A ghost of something crossed his face.
Anticipation, maybe. Hunger. "It's going to be spectacular. "
He left me standing in the hallway, shaking with rage and fear and something else—something hot and liquid that pooled in my belly and made my thighs clench together.
I didn't eat breakfast. I didn't eat lunch or dinner either. The next morning it was Leo who brought in breakfast. Sauntering into my room without knocking, setting a tray on the desk with a grin that made me want to slap him.
"You know," he said, his voice light and teasing as he sprawled in the armchair like he owned it—which he did, I supposed, in every way that mattered—"the hunger strike thing is very dramatic. Very you. But it's not going to work."
Leo was the most conventionally handsome of the four of them, if you could call any of them conventional.
Where Ethan was all sharp angles and cold calculation, Leo was warm colors and easy charm.
His hair was jet black, falling in artful waves that brushed his collar.
His skin was olive-toned, a hint of his Italian heritage that showed in the strong line of his nose and the fullness of his lips.
But it was his eyes that always caught me, gray as storm clouds, sparkling with mischief that hid something darker underneath.
He had the kind of face that made you want to trust him, to laugh with him, to let your guard down.
That was what made him dangerous. He was dressed more casually than Ethan had been, black jeans that sat low on his hips, a fitted black t-shirt that showed off arms corded with lean muscle.
A silver chain glinted at his throat, and I noticed the edge of a tattoo peeking out from under his sleeve.
When had he gotten a tattoo? The Leo I remembered had been unmarked.
Three years. A lot could change in three years.
I was back in the nest. I hated that I was back in the nest, hated how right it felt to be surrounded by softness and warmth, hated the way my hands kept moving without my permission—adjusting blankets, repositioning pillows, building walls of fabric between myself and the world.
"I'm not hungry," I lied, not looking at him.
"Sure you're not," Leo drawled, stretching his long legs out in front of him. His gray eyes tracked my movements with an intensity that belied his casual posture. "That's why you keep looking at the food like it personally offended you."
"I'm looking at YOU like you personally offended me," I hissed, finally meeting his gaze. "Because you did. By kidnapping me."
"Technically, Caleb and I just met you at the airport," he said, flashing that dangerous grin—all white teeth and false innocence. He held up his hands in mock surrender. "Mason and Ethan did the actual kidnapping. We're accomplices at best."
"I'm sure the police will appreciate the distinction," I told him flatly, though I knew anything I said would have an answer or solution ready.
"The police aren't coming, sweetheart." His voice was still light, still playful, but something darker flickered beneath the surface.
The smile stayed on his face, but his gray eyes had gone hard.
He leaned forward in the chair, elbows braced on his knees, and suddenly he didn't look charming at all.
He looked like what he was, a predator wearing a handsome mask.
"No one's coming," he continued, his voice dropping lower.
"Your apartment lease was terminated last week.
Your resignation letter was submitted to the hospital three days ago.
Your phone is at the bottom of a lake somewhere between here and the airport.
As far as the world is concerned, Avalon Lexton simply. .. disappeared."
The words landed like blows, each one driving the breath from my lungs.
"My friends—" I started, my voice cracking.
"What friends?" Leo cut me off, not cruelly, but with a certainty that hurt worse than cruelty would have.
He stood, unfolding his tall frame from the chair with predatory grace, and crossed to the edge of the bed, the edge of the nest, stopping there.
Waiting. "You haven't made a real connection in three years.
You kept everyone at arm's length because you knew, deep down, that letting anyone close was dangerous. "
He crouched down, bringing himself to eye level with me, and for a moment the playful mask slipped completely. Underneath was something raw. Something hungry. Something that had been waiting a very long time.
"We watched you, Ava," he said softly, and there was no laughter in his voice now.
"Every day for three years. We watched you eat alone and sleep alone and cry alone.
We watched you build little nests out of blankets and pillows and pretend you didn't know why.
We watched you check your locks seven times before bed and jump at every shadow and live in constant, grinding terror of the life you were trying to build. "
"That life was mine," I whispered, my voice cracking. I hated it. "It wasn't much, but it was mine. And you took it."
"We gave you a better one," he told me simply, like it was the most obvious thing in the world.
"I didn't ask for—"
"You didn't have to." He reached out, and for a moment I thought he was going to touch my face. His hand hovered in the air between us, close enough that I could feel the heat radiating from his skin. Then he dropped it, curling his fingers into a fist at his side.
"You've been ours since you were ten years old, Ava," he said, his gray eyes boring into mine. "Since the day you walked into Harper Manor with your mother and looked at us like we were the most terrifying, fascinating things you'd ever seen. We've just been waiting for you to remember."
I wanted to tell him he was wrong. That I'd never wanted them, never thought about them, never dreamed about four faces I couldn't escape no matter how far I ran. The words wouldn't come. They would have been lies. And he could smell lies.
"Eat something," Leo said, standing abruptly.
The mask slid back into place, that easy smile returning like it had never left.
But I'd seen what was underneath now. I couldn't unsee it.
"Or don't. The hunger is only going to make the heat worse, and trust me, sweetheart—" He shot me a wink as he headed for the door.
"You want to be as strong as possible for what's coming. "
He left, closing the door softly behind him. I stared at the food for a long time, a beautifully arranged plate of eggs and toast and fruit, steam still rising from the coffee beside it. My stomach cramped with hunger. My hands trembled with the need to reach for it.
Then I ate it, hating myself with every bite.
The afternoon passed in a haze of misery.
My body was getting worse. The cramping had intensified, spreading from my lower belly into my back, my thighs, every muscle I possessed.
I was sweating and shivering at the same time, my skin too hot and too cold, my nerve endings screaming for something I refused to name.
And the slick. God, the slick.
It had soaked through my underwear hours ago.
I'd changed twice already, digging through the drawers of clothes they'd provided, finding everything in my size, my style, my preferred fabrics.
They knew me so well. They'd been studying me for so long.
Now it was soaking through my third pair of underwear, and I'd given up trying to stay dry.
I just lay in my nest, surrounded by softness, and tried not to think about what was coming.
Caleb appeared in the doorway sometime around sunset.
He didn't speak. Didn't enter. Just stood there, filling the doorframe with his massive shoulders, watching me with those ice-blue eyes that had haunted my nightmares for three years.